Contamination in a data storage device can adhere to a head and create unstable flight characteristics, and can become interposed between the head and the medium causing damage to either or both. Although great care is taken to minimize the possibility that contamination exists, nevertheless in today's ever-smaller and higher performance devices it is a factor of serious concern.
Contact-start-stop type devices benefited from wiping the head with the rotating medium before flying the head adjacent the data storage area. The demand for increased storage capacity in ever-smaller packages has resulted in more usage of head loading and unloading devices, which are intended to prevent such contact between the head and medium. In some solutions control schemes are invoked whereby the head is made to intentionally contact the medium. It has been observed, however, that such contact can create new contamination, and is thus problematic in efforts at reducing it. What is needed is a solution that deterministically uses the motions of the head and medium in conjunction with the windage created by the spinning medium to disperse existing contamination to a downstream filter. It is to these improvement features that the embodiments of the present invention are directed.